Endoprostheses are a commonly used way of dealing with diseases in interventional medicine and surgery. Mesh-based endoprostheses such as stents, stent grafts, heart valve frames, etc. are of particular importance in cardiovascular applications. Other fields of medicine also make use of such endoprostheses, e.g. pulmonary tract stents, oesophagus stents, etc.
Intraluminal endoprostheses such as stents are typically designed such that they are deployable by catheter or similar stent delivery system, as it is desirable for stent placement procedures to be minimally invasive. Some stents are self-expandable, whereas other stents are inflated via a balloon inside the stent in order to force the stent to open.
However, in some surgical cases the use of a less invasive delivery system is hindered by form, size and material of the intraluminal endoprostheses. When there are no minimally invasive endoprostheses available, a major surgical intervention is required and while this can often be conducted for the majority of the patients, the replacement of such an endoprosthesis after some years is more difficult due to the aging of the patient. Often secondary and tertiary major surgical interventions are avoided when the condition of the patient does not provide for it.
There have been some further developments in this field and docking structures have been developed onto which elements such as heart valves can be attached resulting in a fully functional endoprosthesis where the part most vulnerable to replacement (e.g. the heart valve) could be replaced using a minimal invasive surgery while the docking structure remains in place. These docking structures have also been made foldable such that these can also be introduced using minimal invasive surgical methods.
However, similar to the functional intraluminal endoprostheses, these types of structures are also prone to fixation problems as the position of the docking structure is highly unstable.
Accordingly, there is a need for improved intraluminal endoprostheses, docking structures and methods for the production of these devices.